


A Chip's Edge

by ann_arcana



Category: Original Work
Genre: Furry, Gen, Nonbinary Character, Queer Character, Queer Themes, Science Fiction, Space Opera, Space Pirates, Trans Character, Trans Female Character, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-18
Updated: 2020-07-14
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:08:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 12,487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23147461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ann_arcana/pseuds/ann_arcana
Summary: On the run after an act of resistance against her oppressive Corporate colony homeworld, Silla finds herself on board a freebooter ship, crewed by Three, its charismatic panda captain, and their crew of fellow fugitives and refugees left behind by the Fed-Corp Wars. Will Silla escape the clutches of the callous Director Thrax? And just what caper are Three and their crew up to?This work is also availableas a podcast,and onYoutube, as read by the author.You can support the author on Ko-fi:https://ko-fi.com/acdanvers
Comments: 2
Kudos: 13





	1. Chapter 1

  
**CHAPTER 1**

A loud hum throbbed in the sky over the landing pad.

Silla could feel it in her chest. The rumble of a distant star engine, making waves across the sky as it prepared for planetfall. That sound at that distance could only be a Corporate cruiser.

She raced across the pad. The corp ship was ahead of schedule, and the disciplinary patrol on foot behind her wouldn't take long to find its way through the terminal to catch up.

Fortunately, Silla was fast. Her long feet bounded across the wet tarmac, as her small eyes and great long ears each darted about looking for the right safe passage to freedom.

There. Four bays down, a roughly patched light freighter with markings obviously only hastily pasted on, and several suspicious bulges on the hull that most certainly were not just extra cargo pods. 

Only one marking on the ship looked as old as the rest of its surrounding hull: the three pointed star of the Third Path.

Freebooters.

The Third Path were the last free faction to hold out in the Fed-Corp War, though few remember them now. Most disc-pats can't remember past last week, and the station master probably looked the other way. This is a Corp world, and profit is profit.

Silla hurled towards the ship now, determined. Freebooters were a risk, but they were no corps or disc-pats, and anyone who still kept the Third Path might just have some trace of decency left in them.

***

"All aboard! We're on a tight schedule here folks!" Alvis shouted at the bedraggled passengers shuffling up the loading ramp.

He helped an elderly passenger hike their luggage over the lip of the ramp, and glanced up at the sky nervously, his sharp yellow eyes scanning the sky with short, quick movements. The rumbling was getting louder, but still no clear visual yet. The clock was ticking. 

This was cutting it too close. As the remaining passengers filed in, he stroked the white ruff of feathers on his chin and grumbled, wondering what it was the captain was playing at. Why the last minute decision to take passengers? Sure it might make good cover, but they knew this was an inspection day on this planet, and they were already cutting it close after the delay with the new equipment. 

Alvis didn't like unanswered questions in a plan. 

As the last passenger was crossing the threshold, Silla at last reached the loading ramp, halting her swift tread with a skid and a panting for air.

She attempted to gasp out a plea: "Help, I --" but her breath failed her and the words stopped in her throat as she held up a hand begging for pause and patience. 

Alvis startled back a moment, and then eyed her. Another surprise. Alvis gave her a short moment to catch her breath and glanced skyward once more. There was the silhouette now. They did not have time for this.

"Please, I -- *gasp* -- I need passage I -- *gasp* -- not safe -- *breathe* -- coming for me ..." Silla trailed into panting breaths again.

Alvis responded not with words, but with a glance up again, this time to the captain, who was now standing on the catwalk above the cargo bay and gazing over the passengers now strapped in to the improvised seating in the middle of the bay.

The captain nodded, smiled, and made a gesture of invitation, tilting their head towards the corridor to the bridge. Alvis quickly nodded back, questions in his mind, but no trace of them on his face.

"Welcome aboard. The captain would like to speak with you."

***

Silla met the captain in the corridor.

They stood waiting against the wall as she passed through the entryway. The same serene smile Silla had seen from the floor of the cargo bay rested on their face, but the mask of black and white around their eyes seeming to widen the expression. Something about it calmed Silla, and for the first time since she began her long sprint across the port, she felt herself finally start to catch a breath.

They spoke first. "I suspect it's not an especially brilliant deduction to guess that you're running from something." 

The breath was short-lived, and Silla felt a lump in her throat. "I- ... Yes."

"Disc-pats?"

"Yeah." Silla sighed, her ears laying flat against her head.

The captain's tail swayed slightly. A gesture of thought, Silla realised. They studied her for a moment, their dark eyes unreadable. Silla hesitated to meet their gaze, instead watching the red and white stripes of their tail flit gently back and forth.

"It's OK." Their voice was warm, kind. The captain moved their eyes to meet hers. "We're all runaways here. I've been running a long time myself."

The sound of their voice felt like a warm hug. Silla's eyes threatened to well up, and she said nothing.

The captain seemed to startle themselves for a moment, as if something had just dawned on them. "Perhaps we'd best start with introductions. Welcome to the Four-and-Three. I'll be your captain this evening. Are we feeling OK with sharing names?" 

Their voice was genuine, a question asked in earnest. "Umm, yes, I-" she paused, weighing her trust. "I'm Silla."

"Welcome aboard, Silla. I am, for lack of a better name, the 'Three' in 'Four-and-Three'. The 'Four' is ... a story for another time perhaps. Though for the sake of appearances, best stick with 'Captain' in front of the crew."

Three winked. Silla found herself allowing a hint of a nervous smile.

"Now," they continued, "you're with me. Got to keep an eye on a new stray." The captain smiled, then started, the ever increasing rumble outside sparking a memory.

"Shit, right! The giant corp ship descending on us all." They struck their forehead gently with a black paw, and grabbed Silla by the hand. "To the bridge then, and quickly."

***

Silla hurriedly strapped herself in to a guest seat towards the rear of the bridge as the captain took their place in the center. As she strapped herself in, she suddenly shuddered as what seemed like the whole body of the ship reverberated with the most terrible klaxon she had ever heard, a huge, piercing, thrumming sound she could feel in her bones. 

The crew, busily preparing for take off, glanced around in a moment of shared concern, before doubling their pace. The klaxon had been replaced by a rumble, growing louder. 

The corp ship was closing in for a landing. Silla's heart raced, and she had to fight the urge to start running, somewhere, anywhere. "This was it," she thought, "I haven't made it. I was too slow."

Silla gripped the arms of her seat, eyes darting, ears flat.

The captain flipped a switch on their chair, and began speaking, in the clear and calm register of a seasoned pilot.

"Good afternoon passengers, this is your captain speaking. We've had a bit of a scheduling mixup it seems, and we will be preparing for a rapid takeoff in order to better ensure we fulfill our guarantee that every flight aboard the GSS Four-and-Three remains free of Corporate interference. At this time I'm going to ask you to please fasten your safety belts securely, and remain seated at all times. It's gonna be a bit of a rough ride, but Iyla is a hell of a navigator, so we'll have you flying clear and level through neutral space in no time."

The loudspeaker clicked off, and now the growing rumble from outside was joined by the rattle and shake of the Four-and-Three's own engines preparing for takeoff. 

Silla's grip on the seat tightened.

This was not going to be the best introduction to space flight.

***

Iyla hissed a curse as the intercom switched off.

"You always expect miracles," she snapped, hastily flipping switches on the nav console.

"And you always deliver," the captain retorted with a slight smirk.

The frills of her crest flushed yellow, but she quickly stiffened. "One day we might not be so lucky, you know. And it makes Alvin nervous when we cut things too close. You know he gets twitchy when he's nervous."

"He'll calm down once we're in clear skies. Besides, if we need luck, now we've got a lucky charm." Three glanced back at the nervous Silla and winked.

Iyla grumbled and went back to the controls, head twitching slightly as the sound of the approaching corp ship's thrusters surged and send another shockwave reverberating through the hull.

"Come on now, there's a good thermocouple," Simon intoned gently from the other end of the bridge, seemingly oblivious to the conversation. Splicing tool in hand, he lay prone in front of an open panel, his ears back and pupils wide, trying to bridge an apparently difficult connection. The gap closed with a spark, and he yowled in pain and satisfaction at once, his calico tail twitching in frustration.

"Everything alright over there?", the captain inquired. 

"Hmm? Oh, well ... it'll be fine. Just a little more load on the life support systems than its used to with all these people." Simon paused, his pupils narrowing as if in thought. "Why did we take on passengers again?"

"We need the cover for the job. No one's going to believe we're just a passing tour bus, if we don't have passengers, now are they?"

"Right, right. Still ... wish I'd had time to upgrade the compressor coils for this many lungs. She'll hold, just so long as no one breathes too hard."

The captain shot him a quizzical look, then dismissed the thought. "Iyla, how are we doing on those launch preparations?"

"Any second now, Captain, just got to account for --"

The entire ship shook with the force of a massive thud coming from somewhere outside, and the once constant thrum of the approaching star engine now attuned down to a fainter and fainter whine.

The corp ship had landed.

"I'm gonna need you to do that accounting quick, Scales."

Iyla gaped for a second, then snapped quickly back to her screens. "Right."

***

Director Thrax sighed, and rubbed at his forehead with a feathered talon. "We've barely landed, Intern Parnus. What could possibly be so important on this backwater planet that they should already be hailing us before we've scarcely touched down?"

"Apologies sir," the young intern blurted, with the quick nervousness of someone who's seen this conversation end badly before. "It's the local disciplinary patrol sir, they say there's a fugitive aboard one of the ships in this pad quadrant."

"Hmm." Thrax's brow raised, a spark of interest flashing in his bored, half-lidded eyes. "This will not do well for their evaluation." 

He pondered a moment.

"Do they have any indication of the fugitive's precise location?"

"No sir, it seems they've lost sight of them, they were hoping --" Parnus words stopped in his throat as a loud but muffled roar came from the starboard side of the ship.

"That'll be them then," Thrax sighed, with an air of bored inevitability.

"Cargo frigate taking off from pad bay 6 sir. The registration codes are old, can't make out the origin and they haven't registered a flight plan."

"And I suppose these backwater pats haven't even prepared a response to escape by air yet." Thrax sighed. "Scramble interceptors, make it Alpha Flight. And be sure to take this out of the colony's budget. I am not getting marked down in the quarterlies for having to clean up after some local mining pit's strays."

"Aye sir."

"I'm going to go watch the fireworks. Do see to the preparations for disembarkation and inspection."

Thrax rose, and made for the lift to the observation deck. "At least I might get one moment of excitement for the day."

***

The Four-and-Three thundered towards the upper atmosphere, the sharp incline pressing a scared Silla against the back of her seat. Even from the bridge, her long ears could hear shocked commotion from the passengers   
in the cargo bay.

Iyla clutched the controls with intense concentration. An ascent this fast and sharp was the kind of thing they used to do in the rocket flight days, not in a relatively modern cargo barge. It would take all her focus to stay on course and keep the various forces outside the ship from tearing it apart.

The intercom at the captain's chair buzzed, and they flicked it on. Alvin spoke with a staggered frustration: "Hey Captain? Any chance we can go a little lighter on the throttle, some of the passengers are looking a bit--"

A warning alarm sang out from the sensor display on Iyla's control panel. She hissed angrily. "Captain, we've got company. Signatures look like Corp interceptors." 

"Shit." Three's brow furrowed with concern. "Alvin, we're gonna have to worry about passenger comfort later. We need your eyes up in the loft."

"Aye aye." The frustration had given away to alert attention. The intercom switched off.

The captain spoke without hesitation. "Iyla, punch it."

The ship thrusters flared, and the craft screamed forward for an instant that felt like a moment, Iyla still intent at the controls as the hull shook under the strain of so much speed. Simon, gripping tightly to a railing, wandered his gaze across instruments and panels vivid with red warning lights, a look of almost parental concern on his face. Silla was wide-eyed with panic now, her ears pinned.

The intercom rang a chime, and began squawking an announcement. "Departing vessel, this is Director Thrax of the CSS Entrepreneur. We have reason to believe you may be transporting an escaped fugitive from this colony. Please return immediately to your designated landing pad. Our escort will arrive momentarily to assist you."

Silla was shaking now. Despite every effort to fight it, she let out a gasping squeak of terror, and her legs tensed as if to either run or thump a warning. 

Three turned their head to her, a knowing look and a calm smile on their face that said they'd been through this a hundred times before. They raised one digit to their lips and gave a "shh" sound.

The captain flicked a switch on the intercom, and put on their best tone of smug magnanimity. "Director Thrax! What a generous show of concern! I had no idea the Corporation was so interested in passenger safety and security on small independent vessels such as ourselves. However, I feel I must remind you that as a Free Ship of the Old Alliance, your Corporation has no jurisdiction over this vessel, and we travel through your space as paying customers, not employees." They turned back to Silla and gave a wink and a smirk, as the intercom rang back only dead air that she could swear sounded like it was fuming.

Flicking another switch on the intercom, the captain switched registers now. "Alvin, what do we got up there?"

"Iyla was right. I count 6 interceptors. Just guns, no heavy ordinance. Quite the welcome for a runaway. Should I warm up our little surprise?"

"Not just yet, we are just a humble little cargo ship, after all." This time the wink was merely implied.

"Well, whatever we're going to do, we better do it quick. They're setting into attack formation, and all love to Scales, but I'm not sure even she can outfly a whole attack flight at this speed."

"Noted."

Three startled as the intercom chimed again. "Blasted announce channels. Simon, remind me to remind you to fix that." Simon tilted his head, perplexed by the order.

The sound of the Director clearing his throat rang through the speaker. "Captain, I assure you we are aware of our treaty obligations, and the Corporation is all too happy to comply where applicable. However we have reason to believe the suspect is highly dangerous, and in the possession of proprietary Corporate data. If you do not comply, we will have no choice but to regard defiance as an intentional act of theft, which contravenes ... " Thrax's voice trailed a moment, as if suddenly even he was bored by this line of legalese. "Now, I--"

Silla's voice rang clear from the back of the bridge, cutting him off before he could continue. "Director Thrax!" The entire bridge turned to face her as she paused to steel herself, eyes closed in concentration. 

Her eyes snapped open, now sharp with intent. She continued, almost quavering at first, but resolute. "I have vital information regarding the Calix colony which may contravene what has been provided to you by local management. May we transmit it to you now?" 

By now the captain had fully swiveled their chair to face her. She nodded to them, and produced from inside her jacket a small memory stick, and turned to the engineer. "Simon, could you prepare this for datalink?"

Simon nodded, and quickly approached to collect the stick, a look of surprised respect for the once scared rabbit on his face.

"Director?" she prompted again.

The Director's voice was audibly ruffled, but he at last replied in gruff assent. "Very well, you have me curious. Transmit at will, but be warned: my interceptors have orders to respond with due force to any foul play. Intern Parnus ..." Thrax trailed off as the radio went silent.

Simon inserted the stick into a panel on the ship's main computer and tapped a few keys. "Off it goes."

The ship continued to rocket on, Iyla intent at the controls as the interceptors closed on their position. The captain studied their new stowaway with curiosity, but all remained silent, as they awaited the next response from the Corp cruiser.

"Captain, do you have the local time?" Silla asked.

Simon volunteered, "16:45 on the dot, Calix time."

Silla exhaled, and began counting in the air in precise second ticks.

Simon and Three glanced at each other, perplexed, as the intercom crackled. Alvin, sounding more than a little confused, reported: "Captain, it looks like a fire has broken out on the surface. And our interceptor friends seem to be breaking off."

The captain breathed a sigh of confused relief.

The intercom chimed again. This time, it was not Thrax's voice on the other end, but the nervous voice of an underling trying to remain calm while his boss lost his temper. "Departing vessel. This is Intern Parnus of the CSS Entrepreneur. We thank you for your cooperation and apologize for the interruption to your regularly scheduled flight plan." Parnus paused awkwardly, as he was interrupted briefly by some unintelligible shouting. "Urgent matters have arisen that call for the Director's attention elsewhere. We do ask that your passenger please report at their nearest convenience to the local Corporate system office for further questioning. Have a nice flight."

The intercom switched off.

The captain and Simon simply gaped, as the ship cracked the upper stratosphere and the infinite stars stretched out before the front view screen. 

The warning lights on Iyla's instrument panel clicked off, and she slowed to a comfortable cruising speed and set course for the nearest warp gate.

They were clear.

Silla slumped in her seat. Blackness had claimed her by the time her head hit the cushion.

***


	2. Chapter 2

**CHAPTER 2**

The Four-and-Three coasted gently through space, the planet below slowly shrinking behind as it glided towards its destination.

Inside, the crew aboard the bridge, still in stunned silence, were joined by a bedraggled looking Alvis, his feathers ruffled by the experience of trying to calm a cargo bay full of passengers after the experience of a high velocity ascent through the atmosphere.

They glanced at each other, then at the now unconscious Silla, then the crew turned their eyes in unison to the captain.

At last, Simon was the first to speak. "What the heck was that?"

"Going to have to second the kid's request. Just what the heck happened down here?" Alvis asserted, an air of grumpy exasperation in his voice.

Iyla remained placid, but kept her eyes intent on the captain.

Three stopped short of a 'who me' expression on their face, turning instead to a thoughtful one. "It would seem our new guest has some hidden talents. But perhaps we'd best just ask her?"

Three glanced in the direction of Silla, whose eyes were just beginning to open. She rubbed her temple with one paw and glanced around the bridge, to find every eye on it locked on her. She shifted nervously, hunching her shoulders apologetically in response to their gaze.

"Good morning," the captain intoned, with a kind irony.

Silla winced, and sighed. "I ... I guess you're all wondering what that was back there." Her tone was resigned to the inevitability of the conversation she was about to have.

"That does seem to be the topic of the moment, yes." Three glanced around to the crew, who all gave awkward but confirming nods. "I think its time you tell us why you're here."

"Right." She paused, preparing herself. "It's ... complicated, but ... I guess I owe you. Without this ship, I'd be in a cell right now, and that's if I was exceedingly lucky. Y'all have a right to know what I just brought on board."

Simon cocked his head, his ears perking and whiskers twitching in curiousity. Alvis' chest sank. 

"This is more than a local disc-pat scuffle, isn't it?" the captain inquired, their eyes sharpening slightly with concern.

"Yes." She cradled her face in her paws for a moment, then continued. "I was born on Calix. My parents were brought to the colony as runners, couriers between mining outposts too hard to reach by land. Any kind of learning except how to push a cart or hold a mining laser is hard to come by on Calix, but they worked hard, managed to save enough to get me an education, so I wouldn't have to run like they did.

"I never got on well with the other kids in school, but I did get on with computers, well enough to get noticed for it. My parents didn't have enough money to send me off-world to uni or at least to greener pastures, but my computer skills did get me a job in the colony management office. 

"The work was good. I got good pay, health credits, my own place in the capital. I could never quite click with the corpspeak enough to get into management, but that meant more time with the computer and less time in meetings.

"My parents though ..." Silla sighed, pain in her voice. "Rabbits can't run forever. They got too slow to run, but running's a good job, should've left enough of a rest fund but ... somehow their debts always seemed to run faster than their pay. Then Dad got sick and ..."

Her voice broke, her eyes tearing up at the memory. Three regarded her with a forrowed brow and caring eyes. They leaned in closer, resting their arms on their thighs.

"It's OK," they said. "These stories are never easy. As you can."

Silla wiped her eyes with a forearm and sniffled. "Thank you." She paused and took a breath, trying to relocate her track in the story and steel herself for the words coming next.

"Dad didn't make it. Not enough health credits for the treatment, they said." Her sorrow turned to bitterness as the words fell from her mouth. 

"Bastards," Iyla hissed, in a tone that said this was personal. "If I could take a bite out of every chargemaster's throat--" She stopped herself, silenced by a quick glance from Alvis telling her this was not the time. 

Silla continued, "Something didn't seem right. My parents lived pretty simply. Wasn't much use for a lot of stuff when you're always running anyway, was Dad's outlook. And how could they go from saving enough for me to go to school, to having to borrow from the company store just to eat? I couldn't make sense of it, so I went digging.

"I started looking through Mom and Dad's finances first. Very quickly something wasn't adding up, literally. The amount they were spending, and the debt actually accrued and compounded, simply didn't match the interest rates according to the books. I had access to the whole company database and ... same thing. The whole debt system was spitting out phony numbers.

"These rates are fixed by corporate policy, local colonies shouldn't be able to change them except by specific request, but there's none logged or approved. I experiment with making a few phony buys on credit, and that's when I realize something in the system is intercepting it and fudging the numbers before it goes to official records. I dig into the accounting source code, and the company balance sheet, and that's when I see it. The bombshell.

"The Calix colony has not been profitable in 20 years. They've been haemorrhaging money for even longer. The mines haven't been producing nearly what they projected, and the rest of the missing money was mostly siphoned off down black holes that conveniently match sudden windfalls for the local administrators. To cover it up and make the books balance, they've simply been jacking up the accrued interest of every colonist on the planet, and then counting the full value of the debt as an asset future to offset the massive losses."

"Shit." The word was heavy Alvis' mouth. His feathers ruffled and he shook his head, his mind anticipating already what Silla was about to say, and the massive amount of shit she was in. More surprises.

Silla continued, disregarding the interruption. "So ... I fixed it."

"Goddammit." Alvis interjected again, rubbing his temples in horrified resignation.

"What do you mean you 'fixed it'?" Simon inquired, clearly a bit lost.

"I mean ... I fixed the 'bug'. I wrote a script to snatch the administrator's credentials, lock him out, remove the code that was fudging the debt balances, wipe the bogus debt, rebalance the books to match actual revenues and assets of the colony, then delete the old data and itself so the phony books couldn't be quickly recreated.

"And then I scheduled the script to run on inspection day."

The words hung in the air for a moment. Iyla gave a proud grin. Alvis shook his head. Simon's pupils widened, his jaw agape in admiring surprise.

Three put it together with a one-sided smile. "Ensuring that our new friend Director Thrax would arrive to find a colony in financial disarray and clearly in need of new management. It's a risky bet, kid."

"It was the only one I had to play. I couldn't let them get away with it." She steeled her jaw. "Not after Dad. I had it all timed out, so I could get to the port and be on board a ship before the script triggered and did its magic but ... well, you know what they say about time and computers ..."

"Oh no ..." Simon intoned, almost involuntarily. The crew looked on quizzically as Simon and Silla shared a sigh of shared engineering trauma.

"Calix time is hella weird, and I miscalculated the leap time for the irregular day, so the script went off too early. The admin office was already in a panic by the time I got up, had decided to blame the girl who was smart with computers by the time I was packed, and the disc-pats were ready with an arrest order by the time I reached the port. I had to jump the damn turnstile to get through the terminal."

"Hells, you're lucky this is just some mining backwater," Alvis remarked in shock. "Any place bigger, they'd've shot you on sight for that."

Silla shrank for a moment, slightly chastened by the thought. "I just ran. I may not have my parents' speed but I was still born from runners. The disc-pats were right behind me, and the damn inspection ship apparently decided to arrive early too. I just bolted for the first ship that looked safe ..."

"... and there we were, right in the nick of time." Three intoned with a smile.

"Yeah. I guess maybe I am lucky sometimes." Silla laughed.

"But what was this?" Simon asked, holding up the memory stick.

Silla sighed. "That was supposed to be my insurance policy. Complete records of both the real and the phony books, the administrators' hidden accounts, the source code to their little 'bug', all of it. The plan was to get clear and drop that little present at the nearest system office, hoping the Corporation would be more interested in massive accounting fraud than the little minor hack that brought it to their attention. But well, you've seen how my plans go."

She glanced around at the crew, apologetic, but also weighing in her mind still if she'd made the right call.

"Look, I'm not dumb," she said, her voice pleading, defensive, one eye on Alvis. "I was prepared to go down for this, but I couldn't take a bunch of strangers down with me. I figured the data would at least get the inspector off our backs long enough to get spaceside. But that was my last chip. Who knows what he'll do from here."

Three nodded, understanding on their face. "System office gets a drop like that, they'll only see dollar signs, and heads roll, the bigger the better. Some local middle-manager on a power trip like Thrax ... he's liable to shoot the messenger to save on paperwork. Inspectors are not known for their big picture thinking."

"Yeah ..." Silla trailed off, her ears flat, the uncertainty of her fate now finally coming to weigh on her shoulders. The whole day's action, months of work, her payback ... could be for nothing, now that the data was in Thrax's hands. Would the inspector just turn it over to the colony? She shuddered.

"One last thing: the fire?" Three inquired.

Silla chuckled, and allowed herself a little smile. "The one damn thing today that actually *did* go off on time. Just a little pyrotechnics, all flash, no real danger. I used to volunteer to do the annual founding festival fireworks. It was supposed to be the distraction in case my script got discovered before it could finish. Guess at least that worked out."

"For a terrible, reckless, dangerous plan, you sure put a lot of thought into it." Alvis remarked flatly.

Silla lowered her head and rubbed the back of it with her paw, an embarrassed smile on her face. As she raised it again, she caught Simon's eyes for a moment. He looked as if he'd just seen her do a double backflip. She glanced away quickly, but her cheeks flushed at the attention.

Three regarded her thoughtfully, then glanced around at their crew, taking a silent vote by each crew member's reaction. Iyla and Simon were clearly impressed, but Alvin seemed restless, hesitant, as if weighing the risks in his mind and not liking the odds. He might need some convincing.

Three's tail twitched in their seat, and they spoke. "Remember what I said to you in the corridor?"

Silla nodded.

"We're all runaways here." Three glanced at Alvis reprovingly. "You don't end up with a number instead of a name because you came from healthy circumstances. So I'm going to level with you.

"This ship is safe for you in as far as we have the power to keep it that way, but we are not without our enemies. Freebooters don't make a lot of friends in high places. So I'm not as worried as my friend here," they gestured to Alvis, "--about Corporate entanglements."

Sensing protest, Three held up a paw, "Now I understand what he's worried about. The way I see it you just flipped a coin. Heads, you're in the clear, the inspector is too busy disentangling some local corruption to waste time chasing after his sources. Tails, our boy smelled prey, and you are in a whole heap of shit and made the kind of enemies you can't ever quite escape.

"What I want to know, is what you planned to do once you got off that rock. You sure laid out quite the plot back there, but did you write an ending?"

Silla shifted in her seat uncomfortably. She sighed, weighing her answer. "I have my own money saved up. Strictly above board, nothing traceable to the colony's money troubles. I figured I'd ride out as far as I could, try to get to Fed space maybe."

"Riding off into the sunset only happens in the movies kid," Alvis remarked. 

Three tilted their head and gestured towards Alvis in reluctant agreement. "And what happens if you get to the next station and there's a dispatch bulletin out for you?"

Silla felt the urge to run rising again. "Oh god ... I mean, I know a few people, I could hide out maybe ..." She trailed off, aware she sounded unconvincing even to herself. Tears started to well up in her eyes.

Simon looked on in concern, his ears flat. Iyla shook her head sympathetically.

"What do you think, Alvis? We got a wounded bunny, all alone in the woods. You fancy her chances?"

Alvis sighed gruffly, but nodded reluctantly. He turned to regard Silla, gazing at the shaken rabbit. "Alright, alright. Dammit." His voice softened. "Listen kid. I look out for this ship and this crew, is all. But I trust my captain, and they say you're on board, that means I look out for you too."

Three nodded. Silla looked up, sniffling and wiping her eyes. 

"Welcome aboard kid." They smiled.

"Wanna join a pirate crew?"


	3. Chapter 3

**CHAPTER 3**

"Wanna join a pirate crew?"

The question entered Silla's ears as if they were merely jumbled noises heard through a pane of thick glass, recognizable as words but devoid of distinction or meaning. She blinked back at the captain, as if awaiting for some background process in her brain to finally turn the sounds into comprehensible speech.

Three registered the confusion, and continued: "Look, I don't need to tell you that going back to Calix isn't going to be an option any time soon, and there's a lot of Corp space between you and trying your luck as a Fed refugee. Now I could drop you off at the warpgate station and leave you to chance, but I can tell you, I have been down that road and it took more than luck to survive this long.

"We are still a Free Ship, for as much as that's worth anymore, and sheltering refugees is what we were founded for ... among other things. There's work for you here if you'll take it; Simon's a great engineer but the finer details of computers aren't really his strong suit, and --" Three paused, closing their eyes for a moment, trying to keep a slight twinge of pain from their voice. "-- we've got an extra bunk that's been lying empty for too long.

"So what do you say? You wanna risk running from the man, only to end up under the heels of a different one? Or do you wanna run free as the missing fourth of our Four-and-Three?"

The whole crew studied her face, waiting for a response. Silla's face tensed in an exhausted attempt at concentration.

"I ... I don't know. To tell you the truth ... I don't know much of anything right now. I was just a local IT admin until a few hours ago. Now I'm probably a wanted fugitive. I'm gonna need a bit to think about this."

Three nodded. "I understand. I apologize. I can tell after our time today you're someone who likes to give things a lot of thought, in spite of sometimes missing some of the details.

"I tell you what: there's not much difference anything makes until we at least get to the warpgate. You ride with us, and when we get to the station, we'll check the bulletins and you can make the call as to where you want to go next.

"For now, how about we put you up in that extra bunk, and you can get some rest? You've had a long day. If I were you I'd be ready to sleep for a week."

Three smiled warmly and tilted their head.

Silla exhaled, relieved to have dodged a difficult question for now, and nothing she had heard in a long time sounded so inviting as the concept of a safe bed.

"OK, it's a deal."

"Excellent!" Three clapped their paws together in delight. "Let's see to that room, shall we?"

***

Simon volunteered to lead Silla to her new quarters. He walked her down the corridor, past the spot where Silla and the Captain had met when she first boarded the ship, and stopped at a door at the end of the hall simply marked "4".

Simon keyed some numbers into a pad by the door. "Here we go. If you could just tap your paw to the reader here ..." He gestured towards the pad, and Silla placed it as instructed. The pad responded with two beeps, and then the door slid open with a hiss of air to reveal the room inside.

"There. Now you should have access to this room. If the reader gives you trouble, just breathe on it. Dunno why, but it usually helps."

Silla nodded, and glanced into the room. It was a strange mix of tidy and neglected. Whoever had lived in the room before had clearly kept it very clean, but even in space, dust is eternal. The bed was neatly made, the shelves still stood full of books and other personal effects, and resting on the desk against the wall still sat a single framed photo.

Silla stepped into the room hesitantly, feeling as if she was intruding on someone else's space in doing so. She glanced back at Simon, as if asking permission to proceed.

"Oh ... yeah." Simon shuffled his feet, and glanced away for a moment. "I guess the captain hasn't ..." He trailed off, as if avoiding an awkward subject. "It's OK though, just ... be careful with things."

Silla slowly crossed the room, and stopped to glance at the picture on the desk. It was the captain, with their arm around another panda, cheeks pressed together and a big grin on their face. The other wore an embarrassed smile, a hint of hesitation or awkwardness to the expression, but also obvious affection.

She opened her mouth to ask about the photo, but paused. Instead, Simon spoke, almost as if to change the subject both felt hanging in the air.

"That was an amazing thing you did back there. I never met anyone who hacked a whole colony before. I think even Alvis was impressed, though he'd never admit it."

"Thanks." Silla's voice was slightly flustered by the praise.

"He's just protective is all, it's kinda his job to be. Especially after what happened with ..." He stopped himself. "Anyway, I should let you get some rest. Captain's orders and all."

Silla sat on the bed. "Yeah... Thank you, Simon. If you hadn't trusted me on the bridge back there..."

Simon flushed but tried to play it off. "O-, of course. If the captain trusted you to be on the bridge, then I trust you."

"They seem to have that effect on people." She mused, and glanced at the photo again.

Simon tilted his head quizzically, but then his ears twitched, one ear swivelling to catch a sound in the direction of the bridge. "Damn, damn, damn. Blasted ventilator's griping again, I gotta move." He started towards the bridge but stopped himself, mid-step. "Sleep well, Silla."

Silla nodded in thanks. Simon keyed the panel again, and the door slid closed.

Silla flopped backwards on the bed, feeling the exhaustion catch up with her by the second. She spoke aloud to the now empty room.

"What have I gotten myself into?"

Sleep came quickly, and with no reply.

***

Silla's eyes slowly opened, then winced closed again with the realization she'd left the cabin lights on when she passed out. As she gently opened them again to ease into the light, she made a mental note to find where the nearest off switch is for next time.

Next time ... would there be a next time? Was she already thinking in those terms?

She shook her head free of that thought's grasp and reached in a pocket for her datapad to check the time. She drew the pad to her face, glanced at the clock, and immediately recognized it for meaningless numbers. She had no idea when she'd slept, and given that she was currently in the vacuum of space, the exterior window was not any more informative about the time elapsed.

Groggily, she got to her feet, straightening her outfit and running a paw through her hair. Her stomach rumbled slightly. She realized she hadn't eaten in ... oh, right, time again. Who's to say what time means at this point anyway?

Regardless, it was enough motivation for her to move, and perhaps seek out Alvis or the captain and see if stowaways and prospective hirees were still allowed access to the ship's mess.

She approached the door, pawed the panel, and it slid open to reveal the surprised face of Simon staring back at her.

"Oh good, you're awake!" He smiled, a bright smile, eyes closed but face radiant. "We're just about to approach the warp gate. You're gonna wanna see this!" Once opened again, his brilliant golden eyes were as bright as his smile.

Silla was startled for a moment, but as the words registered her ears perked up. "Oh right," she thought, "I'm in _space_." Images of things she'd only read about flashed through her mind. Post-sleep sluggishness and the anxieties of the previous ... day's? events, quickly slipped into the past and were replaced by excitement. As the realization dawned, her feet twitched to move almost all of their own volition, and she nearly started into a jog before remembering that Simon was still standing in the doorway.

"Well, let's go then!" she blurted to a now equally startled Simon, who backed away and then followed her hurriedly down the corridor to the bridge.

As she reached the bridge, the sight outside the front glass stopped her in her tracks.

Looming in front of the ship and filling the view more and more by the moment, the warpgate rested in space with the inevitability of ancient stone, a great monument to the achievements of the now dead Alliance. The massive octagonal ring might have been a wonder of the ancient universe, yet its uniform shape and massive painted designation number conveyed the even more shattering realization that it was but one of many identical monoliths cast across the galaxy. The space within the ring rippled and shimmered, warping the light beyond it even as it seemed to echo with the shadows of whatever dwelled on the other side of its massive event horizon.

A space station sat before the ring, seeming from this angle almost to float on the waves of the ring's warp field. Despite being large enough to accommodate several dozen spacecraft of every size and description, it appeared like a tiny life raft adrift in a great sea.

Silla's eyes sparkled with wonder, and Simon stood beside her, a delighted grin on his face. She stepped forward towards the glass, as if to take in more of the sight, but it simply was too much for the eyes to process as the ship drew closer.

"Welcome to Calix Gate," the captain intoned, gentle respect in their voice.

Silla simply gaped, her eyes still drinking in as much detail as she could.

The captain smiled.


	4. Chapter 4

**CHAPTER 4**

Silla continued to watch breathlessly, as Iyla gently brought the Four-and-Three into dock along the outer ring of the station. As the clamps grasped the ship and it settled into place, Alvis rang the intercom to inform the captain that they had successfully docked.

Three sounded the chime on the intercom, and began to speak again, in the polite, sing-song register of a customer service rep: “Good evening passengers, and welcome to Calix Gate Station. We’ll be docking here for rest and refueling for approximately 4 local hours. Passengers continuing on to the Galaxy’s Chip casino tour, please be sure to return by local time 2730 to ensure easy boarding. Those departing to continue on to other destinations, we do remind you that this vessel cannot offer transfer tickets, so please inquire about onward fares with the local ticket office. Thank you for flying with us, and enjoy your time at Calix Gate!”

The intercom switched off with a click that seemed to snap Silla out of her reverie. With the station and the gate now mostly out of view, she could once again begin to take in her surroundings and situation, and the feeling was uncomfortable. She rolled her shoulders and neck and felt the fabric of her clothes shift uncomfortably against her body.

The crew was beginning to rise from their stations, and as her visual focus returned with a shake of the head she turned to catch Three’s glance. 

“Captain, do you know where I might find some new clothes on the station? I uhh, didn’t exactly have time to pack before I left.”

“I can help with that,” Iyla piped up, “Been here a few times, I think I still know where the good shops are.”

“Excellent idea,” Three concurred. “Iyla can keep an eye out for you. We still don’t know what kind of heat you brought with you after the colony.”

Silla nodded, honestly relieved to have the company.

“It’s settled then. You two go on ahead. I’ll get the ship squared away and do a little poking around and try and find out what our new inspector friend got up to after we left.”

***

Silla and Iyla disembarked, stopping to greet Alvis on the way out, who was remaining behind to secure the ship and be prepared to welcome any early returning passengers.

The two made their way through the corridors of the inner ring, passing through entry control without obvious trouble, until finally reaching the station’s vast central atrium. 

More closely resembling a great domed city within the station’s walls, the atrium was littered with shops, office buildings, and housing blocks. This was a metropolis compared to the tiny colonial settlement Silla had been born and raised in, and it would have stunned her as much as the view from outside but for the obvious state of decay and disrepair that was evident all around her. Calix Gate Station may once have been a shining city under glass, but its former high-rises were dingy and faded with age, and the spaces between them were filled with more hastily and cheaply assembled structures crammed into any open space. This wasn’t just a place where people lived, it was a place where people were stranded, left behind by circumstance and the ships that were meant to continue their journeys to somewhere greener and more hospitable than the cold metal walls of a port station.

“Stay close,” Iyla warned. “Stations out this far don’t like to spend a whole lot on security.”

Iyla was alert, her crest raised and eyes forever shifting, as they ducked and darted between shops and down alleyways. Along the way, Iyla murmured occasionally to herself, as if mentally walking through an internal travel guide to the station. Now and then they’d pause for a moment, as she discovered some detail was out-of-place or missing, mentally updating her internal atlas of the city. Silla hurriedly followed along, long since lost after far too many side alleys and odd shortcuts, and hoping only to keep pace and not lose sight of her guide.

When at last Iyla stopped, it was in front of a rather ramshackle dive of a place, welded together from corrugated metal and decorated with a flickering neon sign of a mohawked hyena woman and the words “DEN MOTHER” in sharp, angular letters. The metal walls vibrated with the sound of angry guitars and thudding bass.

“Here we are, my favorite shop in the whole quadrant,” Iyla announced, with some note of pride in her voice.

Silla glanced skeptically at the bead curtain entrance and the display rack of spiked collars visible just beyond it, and hesitated. “Iyla, I’m not sure this is ...”

Iyla steamrolled past the remark. “Come on! You’ll love it. Just uhh ... behave. The owner is an ex of mine. She can be a little ... intense.”

Silla gulped, and followed her inside.

The interior was a chaotic warren of mismatched shelves, racks, and glass cases loaded with everything from old minidiscs, leather, denim, band t-shirts, piercings, patches, and even lingerie and bondage gear, and all in tune with an aesthetic very quickly explained by the woman seated behind the till and absently scrolling through her datapad. 

She was powerfully built, broad shouldered and thickly armed, and the spiked black mane running up her neck to the top of her head told Silla this must be the woman from the sign out front. She wore a denim vest jacket with fishnet sleeves, and matching spiked collars around her wrists and neck. Silla could swear it looked like she’d even darkened the fur around her eyes, just to add a touch of extra menace. Something about the woman’s demeanor conveyed the aura of a concealed weapon; this was someone who was prepared to defend her “den” by any means. “ _ Behave indeed, _ ” Silla thought.

The owner glanced up briefly with a wary glower, but the intensity of the moment was instantly shattered by the sound of Iyla’s excited voice.

“Kara!” she beamed, raising her arms in a gesture of either greetings, or that of one approaching a potentially hostile force and wanting to convey harmlessness.

A spark of recognition flashed against Kara’s face, and her glower turned into a look of delighted surprise.

“Iyla!” She shouted back, before hopping the glass countertop and nearly tackling Iyla into an embrace. She kissed Iyla on the cheek and continued, “What the hell brings you all the way the hell out here? Been a long time, you know.” There was a slightly dark tone to the last remark that could almost be mistaken for judgment.

“Well, you know ... freebooter life and all that.” Iyla replied, sheepishly running her hand across her crest.

Kara nodded, “I hear that. Why do you think I settled down here? So who’s your friend?” Kara sized up Silla, who was politely pretending to peruse a nearby rack. 

“Another stray the Captain has decided to adopt,” Iyla replied in a sardonic tone. “She’s a good one. Did a real number on the crooks back on the Calix mining colony.”

“A proper comrade!” Kara nodded, her tone surprised and impressed. “Well then, what can I do for you two today?”

“My friend lost her luggage back on Calix, and could use a wardrobe upgrade, and some ... protection.”

Silla’s ears shot straight up at this and her eyes widened. “Whoa whoa whoa,” she interjected, glancing at the entrance nervously before continuing in a hushed voice. “You don’t mean like ... a gun?”

Iyla laughed. “Of course not, the captain would never let you bring a gun on board. You know what slugs do to a ship’s hull?” She grinned, a not-quite-successful attempt to ease Silla’s nerves.

“Girl, you really are new to this, aren’t you?” Kara asked, purely rhetorically, and glancing reprovingly at Iyla. Iyla grimaced apologetically, as Kara rounded the counter and withdrew a display case from a locked and concealed compartment beneath it.

Arrayed in the case was an assortment of small handheld devices, each consisting of a cylindrical grip, and a semi-circular handguard lined on the outer side by a row of evenly spaced rectangular lenses. They came in a variety of styles, with different materials, grip, lens design, and control configurations.

“This,” Kara announced, as she collected one of the devices and held it in her grip, “is a claw, the weapon of the true freebooter, those who still follow the code anyway.” 

She activated the device with her thumb, touching a small activator at the junction between the backside of the grip and the hand guard. The device sparked to life and the front side of the handguard was surrounded by an aura of blue energy.

“The claw is a directed energy weapon. That blue field you see is charged with enough juice to knock out most anything shy of an angry Jaglan grunt-ox for at least the next 8 hours. Non-lethal ... mostly, so long as you’re careful with repeat shocks.”

She gestured for her two guests to stand back a bit.

“The claw follows in tune with the motions of the wielder.” She gave the claw a downward swing in a slashing motion, and as she did the energy of the field flared and then coalesced to match her motion by shaping itself into a wide curved blade not unlike a cutlass. She gave another motion, this time a thrust, and as she did so the blade now flowed forward, transforming into a katar-like punching dagger. A final move, this time a downward stroke, and again the energy field rushed to follow and as quickly as the motion could be completed had formed into that of a dagger. The tip of it tapped the countertop with a spark.

“It can also direct energy at range. Squeeze the grip and ...” She drew up her other hand to stabilize the weapon and Silla watched with a shocked gasp as a bolt of energy shot out with a zap and a bang and crashed against the opposite wall with a briefly dramatic but ultimately harmless show of sparks and lightning.

Silla stared in wonderment as Kara continued. “Now, it ain’t especially accurate in ranged mode, and it takes a moment to recharge, but it’s useful in a pinch. Iyla here’s a pretty good shot, caught me with it once ... but it’s that Alvis friend of yours who can really hit a flea off a dog’s nose. Notice it didn’t do squat to the wall over there: mostly the claw won’t do much to anything but people and especially sensitive electrical equipment. The idea is to preserve life and equipment alike; a ship full of holes is no good for salvage, and a ship full of bodies tends to anger the local authorities. Freebooters are thieves, not killers. Well ... the legit ones are anyway.”

Iyla nodded. “We loot and leave. This just helps keep us out of trouble if things get nasty,” she added, with a tone of seriousness that implied this was more than practical consideration, but a matter of honor.

Silla gaped, fascinated and horrified at once by the glowing energy still dancing about Kara’s hand.

Kara grinned, and switched it off, setting it back in the case. “Why don’t you take a look?”

Silla hesitantly stepped forward, and glanced around the case. Sensing her slightly overwhelmed reaction, Iyla spoke: “Don’t stress it, just choose the one that feels comfortable, like it’s an extension of your paw.”

Silla nodded, and felt out a couple devices, before finally settling on one with a slightly contoured and angled grip, and a hand guard that flared out near the thumb. It felt natural, her digits resting comfortably around it as if it were an old tool, its handle worn down to just the way she liked to hold it. 

“Can I ...?” she asked, the actual question obvious. Kara nodded, and Iyla stepped back to a safe distance as Silla took a few awkward swings with the weapon. The blade of the energy field seemed to struggle to follow the jerky motion of the swings. It didn’t quite look as fluid as Kara had made it seem, she noted to herself, blushing slightly at the clumsiness of her amateur display. “Guess I’ll need some practice ...” she muttered sheepishly.

Iyla smiled. “You’ll get the hang of it. And Alvis is an excellent trainer.”

Silla grimaced. She hoped he’d be a gentler teacher than he was a greeter of new crew members.

***

Silla managed to round up a few acceptable articles of clothing; a new denim jacket, some synthcore band shirts, and a couple long skirts in black and red. She paid for the clothes and the claw, and she and Iyla waved goodbye after asking for a recommendation for somewhere they could both grab a bite.

As they made their way through the cramped alleyways, Iyla reminded Silla that it was best to keep the claw well concealed. “They’re not strictly illegal exactly, and lots of folks on a station like this are probably carrying worse. But you know disc-pats. They don’t tend to react too favorably to anyone who looks like they can defend themselves.” She laughed, genuine but with a touch of bitterness. She was speaking from experience.

Finally they stopped at a stall, selling dumplings filled with local mystery meat and veg alike. They each ordered a dozen, meat for Iyla, something that was described (probably erroneously) as “rock cabbage” for Silla, and a couple bottles of something cold and fizzy that neither could identify. They claimed a couple of low stools at a table just next to the stall, and Iyla dug in with visible hunger and without ceremony, the first sign of any fatigue Silla had seen in her all day. 

Silla took a slower pace, lost in thought and slowly snacking on the surprisingly fishy-tasting “cabbage” dumplings, the weight of the claw in her inside pocket weighing more on her mind than her clothing. The encounter with Kara was another reminder that she was no longer in a little mining town anymore, and she found herself wondering just how far over her head she was in this already. 

She took a sip of her drink. It was cold, refreshing, slightly sour, with a tangy hint of some kind of fruit she was just beginning to place when she heard a voice from behind her.

“Silla?”

She was startled to hear her own name, and tensed. She glanced at Iyla, who shook her head to indicate her own lack of recognition.

“Oh, sorry, it was ‘Glassrunner’ wasn’t it?”

Now she was  _ very _ tense.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: harassment, violence

CHAPTER 5

“There’s no one here by that name,” Silla replied levelly.

“Come oooonnn, I’d recognize those ears anywhere,” the stranger remarked, with slight air of smugness to their tone.

Silla’s mind raced as she tried to place the stranger’s voice and failed, but she sat still, a half-eaten dumpling still clutched in her chopstick.

Iyla gave the stranger a stern look. “I think you’ve made a mistake. You’d best move along, friend.”

A scruffy canine with ill-kept yellow fur in a polo shirt and genes, the stranger returned Iyla’s gaze with a brief look of impotent defiance, then disregarded her and continued. “Don’t you recognize me? It’s Dace.” He placed a paw on Silla’s shoulder.

The dumpling dropped. Silla’s eyes went wide. Now she placed him, a cloud of crude messages, creepy photos, and unwanted virtual gifts that lived in a part of her mind she’d rather stayed buried.

“Now why don’t you--” Dace began, but Silla cut him off.

“GET. YOUR HAND. OFF ME.” Her tone was clipped and instantly tense, the words passing through gritted teeth. She flashed a look of danger at Iyla. This wasn’t a stranger, it was a threat. Iyla nodded.

Dace refused to budge, and continued with the same false charm. “Now is that any way to talk to your biggest fan?”

Silla’s own paws clenched and on instinct she found herself gripping the chopsticks almost as a weapon.

Iyla was quick to her feet. She stood over the table, a good head height taller than Dace, and stern had been replaced with active threat. “Listen, she ain’t buying, kid. Move along before you get hurt.”

Dace’s unconvincing air of amiability dropped. “Why don’t you stay out of this, rockbelly?” He sneered at Iyla, hand still on Silla’s shoulder. Iyla’s temper flared, but it was Silla who acted.

“THAT’S ENOUGH!” she shouted, and in one single motion, whirled up and out of her chair, drew her claw from her inside pocket, and landed a blow directly to Dace’s chest with a charge of crackling energy. The force sent Dace reeling into the alley and against the corrugated steel wall opposite the dining area.

Iyla looked on in surprise for a moment as Silla stood over Dace’s now unconscious form with a mix of furious triumph and slowly growing horror, but before they could react further, a shout came from the end of the alley.

Disc-pats. A patrol of two had spotted the scene and were now jogging towards them.

Iyla barked an order of “Run,” before grabbing the dazed Silla and pulling her along as she darted down a cross street. Silla regained her composure and soon followed under her own power, having the presence of mind to stow the claw back in her jacket pocket.

“This way, I know a shortcut,” Iyla instructed through breaths, turning down another alley as the disc-pats shouted behind them. They ducked inside an alcove just out of sight, as the disc-pats reached the intersection. The confusion delayed them for a moment, while Iyla began tapping at the wall behind them.

“What are you doing?” Silla asked, baffled.

“Like I said, shortcut.”

Finally, Iyla’s tapping found a hollow spot, and she tapped a hidden panel and the wall slide away. Silla looked surprised but wasted no time following Iyla through the opening and closing the entry behind them. Silla glanced around to see a red-lit corridor stretching off in front of them.

“Where are we?” she asked.

“Smugglers’ tunnels. They’re all through this neighborhood. Helps move through without being seen too much.”

Silla flattened against the wall and attempted to catch her breath. Her heart was pounding. She gazed down at the paw that had struck Dace, still shaking from the adrenaline.

“You OK?” Iyla asked.

“Huh?” she replied distractedly. “Oh, I ... I dunno.”

Iyla nodded with understanding. “You decked that guy pretty good for someone who’s never done it before.”

“Wha ...? You could tell?”

“It’s alright. Natural to be a little shaky after that. You wanna talk about it?”

“I’m just tired, you know?”

Iyla smiled somberly and lowered her head slightly in acknowledgment.

Silla sighed. “He’s just another fucking creep from webspace. Not even the first. The cost of being a girl with a computer, and a trans one to boot ...” She caught herself, and glanced up to Iyla to guage her reaction, but Iyla’s expression didn’t shift from one of sympathy.

Silla continued, her eyes welling, and her voice shaky. “I’m just so sick of paying that price. There shouldn’t be a tax for being me.”

Iyla’s face put on a motherly smile. “Come here hun.” She reached out her arms, and held the little rabbit to her and stroked her head. “It’s going to be OK. You found the right crew.”

Silla sniffled. “Thank you.”

Iyla let her go, with one last little tousle of her head. “Come on, if we’re lucky we can get to the ship before they put out a bulletin, assuming there’s not one already.”

“Right,” Silla replied. She straightened, and the two headed down the corridor.

* * *

The tunnels were warm, and cramped, but the two managed to make good time weaving from one corridor to the next, following Iyla’s seemingly impeccable since of direction.

Finally they stopped at a fork in the passage.

Ahead, the route was blocked by a pile of debris. It looked as if the passage had collapsed, perhaps from disuse or some accident in the structure above. Continuing further this way would be impossible without construction equipment, though there was a passage heading off to the right that ended in a door just ahead.

“Dammit,” Iyla cursed. “That *was* the passage straight through to the docking bay. We’ll have to go through the checkpoint.”

Silla grimaced, then nodded, pulling the hood of her jacket up and over her ears. ”You think they got a good look at us?”

“Hard to say, it was some ways down that alley. If they did, our passes will give us away in a heartbeat.”

“Oh, I can help with that.” Silla pulled out her datapad and began rapidly tapping away. “Get out your pad.”

Iyla drew hers and handed it to Silla, who tapped a few more times and with a whoosh and a ping, Iyla’s screen flashed with the notification that she had received a new entry pass to Calix Gate Station, and to have a nice day.

“It’s a good enough fake for the local guards, though if they run the IDs on the intersystem network they’ll flag in a heartbeat. But it was enough to get me through entry control in the first place.”

Iyla pocketed her datapad again with a look of respect. “I can see why the captain wanted you on board.”

Silla beamed.

* * *

Iyla and Silla exited the hatch carefully, peering out first to make sure no disc-pats or curious gawpers were there to see them emerge from the tunnels. Fortunately, the exit came out on a relatively deserted corner of the station, and they were soon able to blend in with the crowds easily enough without attracting attention.

They made their way to the exit gate, keeping careful watch for disc-pats. They passed a news screen but no warnings seem to have been issued yet.

Finally they reached the queue for the exit gate. Silla double checked their passes again, just to be sure the codes looked right.

The line was slow. A family of packrats, each seemingly carrying more luggage than the last, had ground the inspection lane almost to a halt. Silla did her best to avoid the gaze of security, but the stagnant pace increasingly made her feel like a sitting duck. Her runner’s instincts were screaming, but she kept her fidgeting to a minimum by idly scrolling through technical articles on her datapad. The words mostly read as gibberish under this much pressure, but she figured looking down and busy would help her also look uninteresting to the guards.

The last of the packrats reached the inspection counter and there was some confusion about one of the items in their luggage. It was hard to see and hear among the growing din of shuffling and grumbling from the queue, but it seemed something was wrong with one of their suitcases, though it wasn’t clear if it was possible contraband or just a stubborn latch.

Several station border security began subtly moving towards the inspection counter to provide possible backup, while others eyed the tension growing among the crowd. The grumbling was growing into squabbling, and a large tiger some ways ahead of Silla in the line shouted for the queue ahead to hurry up.

The packrat was growing distressed now. There was frantic movement and anxious sounds as they struggled again with the latch on a large suitcase that looked barely small enough for the little one to lift. The inspector was clearly growing frustrated themselves, barking stern orders of compliance and gesturing in a way that seemed to suggest a threat of detainment. As the rat’s distress grew into actual cries, the murmur of the crowd seemed to shift from annoyance to concern, as the additional backup moved in towards the rat from behind.

As the anguished sounds of the packrat and the roar of the crowd reached a fever pitch, the clasp of the suitcase finally snapped free, exploding in a shower of rubber balls. Thousands of bouncing toy balls burst forth in every direction, scattering underfoot, ricocheting off walls, and striking guards and travellers alike.

Chaos erupted. The guards scrambled to respond to the shower of projectiles, some making futile attempts to clear them from the aisle, while the pair who’d appeared as backup struggled to move on the packrat to detain them, but failed to gain stable footing through the sea of balls.

The packrat, seeing an opportunity or perhaps simply panicking, grabbed their remaining bags and rushed forward, to the vocal objections of the inspector behind the counter. Seeing the packrat’s rush, the queue behind them began to push too, pushing and shoving past the still bewildered guards.

Silla found herself pushed both by herd instinct and physical force, as the queue began to surge forward. As the wave crashed forth, Silla felt it threatening to sweep her away with it, but a strong hand gripped her shoulder and pulled her from the throng.

It was Iyla of course. Silla’s instincts at first still almost resisted, the urge to run almost involuntary, but Iyla caught her gaze with a stern look. She gestured towards the passages to either side of the frenzied queue, and Silla finally noticed the impending arrival of more guards to the scene. She understood the situation immediately. This was going to either calm quickly, or get out of hand fast, and in either case, it seemed best to not be on the side of the increasingly riotous crowd when it did. Getting picked up by the disc-pats wouldn’t just mean disorderly conduct and a week’s wage cut for the two of them, and Silla was very much not interested in finding out what the local prison colony was like.

“Come on, we might be able to take the cargo exit if we hurry.” Silla followed Iyla’s lead, hurrying away from the crowd as the incoming backup struggled to contain and control the growing mob.

* * *

As they raced towards the cargo district, a loudspeaker rang an announcement. “Attention customers. Departures via terminal 1 will be temporarily suspended due to a disturbance. Do not attempt to exit the station without proper clearance, or you will be subject to detainment by disciplinary patrol. Please vacate the premises, and we will notify you when the terminal is again ready for departures. Thank you for your cooperation.”

At last they reached the surprisingly deserted cargo terminal, stopping some distance before to compose themselves before proceeding. Iyla sized up the scene. They’d added a few extra guards but it looked like the mob from terminal 1 hadn’t yet started seeking alternate routes yet.

“Just keep your head down, flash your pass, and move confidently. If those passes you made work, we’ll be back on the Four-and-Three in no time.” Iyla said, seemingly as much to calm her own nerves as Silla’s.

“What about the claw? Won’t that flag the security sensors or something?” Silla inquired in hushed, cautious tones.

“Don’t worry. The composite material keeps it looking nice and boring to the sensors, but if anyone asks, it’s not a weapon, it’s a welding tool. Or just book it through the gate ...” Iyla winked.

They proceeded calmly to the exit lane. Iyla approached the counter first, with a surprisingly cheery expression. “Hey,” she checked the inspector’s nametag, “Doug. Listen our ship’s about to take off and we’ve got a real important shipment due. Any chance you could let us through? We’ve got passes.”

“What’s your ship?” the rather sleepy looking hound replied, raising bored, half-lidded eyes slightly to regard Iyla.

“The Four-and-Three. Departing 2800 hours.”

“Right,” Doug checked a datapad. “Fine. Touch your datapad to the scanner please.”

Iyla did so, continuing her chatter all the while. “Hey, do you know what’s happening at Terminal 1? Sounds like a big mess.”

“Just some customs scuffle. Customs thinks they caught a smuggler.”

“You don’t say?” Iyla replied with mock surprise, as the scanner beeped and lit green.

“And your friend next.” Doug gestured to Silla, who moved forward, keeping her head low and avoiding his gaze. She touched her pad to the scanner as well.

“Whatcha got in the bag there, friend?” Doug inquired.

“This? Oh, just some shopping. New clothes.” She held up the bag and opened it, as the light on the scanner lit green again and beeped.

Doug nodded and waved them past. “Have a nice trip.”

“Thanks! You too!” Iyla intoned in the same cheery tones, and the two continued down the aisle.

Iyla passed the two guards at the end of the aisle without a hitch, but as Silla passed something drove her to look up and she caught the gaze of one of them, and time stopped.

It was one of the two from earlier in the alleyway, she was sure of it. They must’ve been called in for backup after the terminal 1 incident. She quickly glanced away and continued walking forward calmly, hoping he wouldn’t recognize her beneath the hood, but just as she did so she thought she caught a hint of recognition from the guard’s face.

She quickened her step slightly to come up side by side with Iyla, and leaned in and whispered carefully. “Get ready to run.” The two continued to move calmly forward towards the final terminal gate into the docking bay, quickening their steps a little more with each stride.

Silla didn’t dare look back and risk only ensuring her cover was blown, but she thought she felt or heard a shuffling behind her as if the guard was turning around to get a better glance at her as she departed.

The two rounded the gate, took a right turn, and immediately took off in a run the moment they broke line of sight. The farther between them and the terminal before the guards decided they recognized them, the better.

The sounds of footsteps stirred behind them, but neither stopped to even glance back. Instead Iyla made a show of glancing at the time on her datapad as if to suggest they were merely in a hurry. By now this was not far from the truth, the delays with the creep in the noodle shop and the chaos in terminal 1 had cut them pretty close to scheduled take off.

As she held the datapad in her hands however, she heard it make a wicked buzz and a red warning message appeared on screen. Their passes had, rather belatedly perhaps, been revoked.

They’d been made.

Silla had noticed the alert by now too, and the two took off in a sprint, ducking past cargo containers and around busy teamsters in an effort to break line-of-sight to the disc-pats that would most certainly be rounding the corner behind them by now.

They spotted the captain ahead, who started to wave, then looked alarmed by their pace. Iyla gestured a quick “wheels-up” motion, indicating to be ready for a rapid takeoff. Three joined them in their run, and they sprinted the last hundred meters up onto the Four-and-Three’s cargo ramp.

As the captain jogged past towards the bridge, he turned towards the waiting eagle scouting the hangar. “Button her up, Alvis. We’re off in minus 5.”


End file.
